THE ROAD BACK
SO LONG AS I STAY SOBER ONE DAY AT A TIME, IT WILL NEVER TROUBLE ME
This article first appeared in the Sunday Press on September 28, 1975
WHEN I became sober five years ago, I had a lot of ground to make up. I had to rebuild my life, pay my debts, re-establish my practice and start looking after my family again.
Had I sat down and thought about it, about what might happen in the future, whether or not I could make it, had I considered the enormity of the task, the difficulties which I should face, the frustrations and disappointments which might be in store, I know that I should probably have reached for the nearest bottle.
I didn’t sit down and plan. I accepted the, to me, new philosophy of living one day at a time. The primary purpose was to stay sober for today. Sober, I could face my problems in a mature way, assess them realistically and tackle them as they were, not as they seemed through an alcoholic haze.
On my own
If I sound smug and make it sound all too easy, I’m giving a wrong impression. It wasn’t easy. It’s never easy to start again, not from zero, but from behind zero. I couldn’t have done it on my own.
Scoff if you wish, but I knew that I had the help of God in my efforts to stay sober and to rebuild my life. In the last five years, I have been convinced that there is a higher power than ourselves. One to whom we must, in the long run, entrust ourselves to get the help that human beings can’t give us.
I am not preaching. I will never ask anyone to stop drinking – that’s a matter or personal choice. I state merely what I found in my search for sobriety.
I don’t preach that your idea of God must be the same as mine,or as that of the third fellow. I know only that I have had help from a
Higher Power than man.
Lest I was too simplistic about recovery from alcoholism – there is no cure, except not to take that first drink – I must make clear that merely staying sober for one day at a time is but a step on the way. If you allow frustrations, animosities or resentments, particularly resentments, to obtrude into your peace of mind, it will be much more difficult.
I have said in an earlier article that the drive to win, the urge to be the best, can be a good thing, but if let take over completely, it can be destructive.
Obsession
When I was playing football and hurling, I always wanted to win. I simply hated being second best. Now I can see that I carried that urge over from the field of sport into my life and let it become almost an obsession with me. I believe that was a symptom of my immaturity. To give you an instance, before I became sober, I would never admit, in my professional life, that a case baffled me. I had to try to prove that I was right, that I knew the cause and cure of whatever ailed the animal. Now I can accept that I don’t know it all, and if there is something in a case which puzzles me, I’ll get a second opinion, or proceed by trial and error and admit it.
When Wexford won the All-Ireland final in 1955, I just couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take the cheering, boisterous, excited crowd in the dressing room and I locked myself in the toilet and cried.
That was really immature. A normal young fellow, having reached the pinnacle of his sport, would have been jumping over the moon with joy, but Nick Rackard was too immature at the time to take it.
After a bit or moralising, I’ll resume my story. When I started on the way back, I was practically down and out. I had to start from scratch, and I remember well when I needed a set of tyres for my car – a second-hand one
– I couldn’t afford to buy them. Fortunately at the time, there was another alcoholic friend of mine who had had his licence suspended and had his car up on blocks. I borrowed his tyres until I could afford to buy some.
Horses
The busy years passed quickly and as they went by I stayed sober and bit by bit, retrieved my position. I got to the stage at last where I had a couple of horses. Those of you who follow them, will remember Tom Brack, which won six races for me, and Ballyellis, which looked a great prospect.
Tom Brack was sold, and I had high hopes for Ballyellis. At Leopardstown, he won the Rogers for Racing Bumper, but broke down and his sale value to me was lost.
If there is a moral in that anecdote, it is that had I not been sober, it would have been a great excuse to reach for the bottle and have a bender.
Thus, as might be said in a more elegantly written story, four years of sobriety passes and Nick Rackard was making good progress materially and with his human relations. Then, in February of last year, I noted some lumps appearing on my neck.
There was no pain, but they were unmistakeable, so I went to the doctor. I had my own suspicions, but I am a vet, not a physician and obviously the thing was to seek expert advice. The doctor didn’t offer any explanation but referred me to a surgeon, and within a week, the surgeon had operated to remove the unsightly lumps. I hadn’t been told what caused them.
For some months, I was feeling perfectly well, then in November 1974, in the course of a routine check-up, I was told I’d have to be hospitalised and have another operation.
That didn’t sound too good; not that I was worried, and in fact, I decided that a month wouldn’t make that much difference and deferred the operation until December.
Around Christmas the job was done. For five and a half hours I was on the table while a very delicate and severe operation was carried out.
Quite recently, a little over a year after the first onset, there were signs of renewed activity from the cells, and I have been undergoing prolonged out-patient treatment in a Dublin hospital. The prognosis is good, the doctors tell me.
Ailment
My ailment may, or may not, prove serious. The prognosis, as I said, is good and I am hopeful of being completely cured pretty soon. When you think of it, there are an awful lot of fatal things in this life, like sclerosis, angina, thrombosis, pneumonia, cancer, influenza and a host of others. They can all kill. So can motor cars, swimming pools, electric kettles and step-ladders. Like the old saying has it ‘when you gotta go, you gotta go’ or as Burl Ives I think, put it one time: ‘There’s only one thing certain in this life and that is that none of us is going to get out of it alive’. I know that like everybody else, I am going to die some time.
I hope it won’t be for quite a while yet, for since I became sober, I like living, yet when I am asked if I’m afraid to die, I can truthfully answer, I am not. Not since I became sober.
Paradoxically, when I was suffering from alcoholism, I often wanted to die, and was afraid to. A lot of alcoholics reach that stage, for the disease attacks not alone the body, but the mind and the spirit.
The steps I have taken on the road to recovery have taught me to pray to God for the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference.
To try to change one thing I can change, I am having medical attention for my ailment, which, I must stress, is not causing me one quarter the torment and mental anguish I suffered from alcoholism.
That cannot be cured. I am not cured of it, and I know I never will be, but so long as I stay sober, one day at a time, it will never trouble me.
Progression
Last year on holiday in France, I had a sudden urge to have a bottle of Marsala with my meal. I probably could have taken it without doing any harm. I might even have had another bottle some months later without any harm. But I knew if I did take it, the progression would have been started again, and I would soon have been back to where I was five years earlier. Because the first drink is the one I, or any alcoholic, just cannot take.
Recently, there was a report in the papers, that there are some 100,000 alcoholics in Ireland. I’m not sure about the figure, but I do know that there is plenty of help available to them. The National Council for Alcoholics in Dublin, and Alcoholics Anonymous, which has groups everywhere in the country, are available to extend the helping hand.
Speaking for myself, I got plenty of help. From recovered alcoholics. From my wife Ailish, who joined Al-Anon; and from the Higher Power. It was all free and unstinted, and it’s available to any sufferer who seeks it. There is only one requirement. The desire to be sober, and for this, the victim must accept that he has a problem.
A lot of material about the warning signs has been published so I needn’t mention them here – I have already outlined some of my own. They vary from person to person – except for one. The blackout from drink is the one constant and infallible sign that you have a problem.
Blackout
If you’ve ever had a blackout from drinking you’ll know. Like maybe driving the car and not remembering a thing about it next morning. Like walking and talking and appearing to be normal, and next morning waking in a cold sweat wondering who you insulted or what damage you have done because for the life of you, you don’t remember anything after a certain time.
If you’ve had even one blackout, you have a problem. Don’t get the impression that I’m a rabid holy-roller or trying to do a Father Matthew. I’m not. I will never advise anyone to stop drinking. If people want to drink, that’s no business of mine. I’ll never interfere with a man’s life. All I know is that personally I want to stay sober, and since I’ve been sober, the world has been a better place for me and those associated with me.
Because of that I am willing to help any sufferer if I can, and even if one victim of alcoholism seeks help because of my relating my experiences, then I will have accomplished something worthwhile.
I’d hate like hell to have my friends and people who knew me when I was hurling and playing football to think that I have developed into some kind of mealymouthed reformer, just because I recognised I had a problem with the booze and sought sobriety.
Many of the friends with whom I drank have followed the same path, and believe me, we’re all normal. We haven’t changed.
Occasionally, although I have a Golden Rule about going into pubs to socialise and it is this – I don’t go into pubs unless I have legitimate reason for being there – I don’t want to expose myself to undue temptation.
I still meet people in bars and restaurants. I still sit in with my cronies, swapping jokes, telling sometimes risqué stories, discussing life in general, just as anyone else.
I still go to race meetings and point-to-points all over the country. I still have a bet on a horse occasionally, still watch a hurling or football match and in every way enjoy life. Some drinkers may not believe it, but I know that sober, life is better, the sky is bluer and the perspective sharper.
And each morning I get up, I realise that this day is the first day of the rest of my life.
The end.
A WORD OF THANKS
People Newspapers would like to sincerely thank the Rackard family for kindly allowing us to reproduce these fantastic articles.
We would also like to thank Ed Rowsome for providing us with so many of the great photos of Nickey which we have used over the last four weeks.